Qualcomm Announces 2Gbps X24 LTE Modem To Complement 5G Transition

We’re only half-way through February, and it’s already evident that 2018 is going to be an extremely busy year for Qualcomm. On one hand, the company’s vying to create the market’s most robust SoCs and fastest modems, and on the other, it’s slapping away a seriously aggressive suitor in the form of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO). Even after Broadcom’s $121 billion offer, Qualcomm feels it’s being undervalued.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 SoC features X20 LTE modem, capable of 1.2Gbps speeds

In advance of the annual Mobile World Congress, which takes place from February 26 – March 1 in Barcelona, Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) has announced that it’s developed a 2Gbps LTE modem that should launch in 2019. At the event itself, Qualcomm is teaming up with Telstra, NETGEAR, and Ericsson to show off the Snapdragon X24 LTE modem’s capabilities.

As basic math would suggest, Qualcomm’s 2Gbps LTE modem is twice as fast as its 1Gbps X16 LTE modem, and it achieves its speed through a couple of improvements over X16, and also the 1.2Gbps X20. This go-around, there’s 7x carrier aggregation, as well as a 4×4 MIMO on up to five aggregated carriers, ultimately providing a total of 20 concurrent spatial LTE streams.

Carriers planning to support Qualcomm’s 5G technologies

On paper, those specs sound amazing, but even at the time of this modem’s launch, it doesn’t seem very likely that many people in the US will be able to take advantage of such incredible speeds. Those outside of the US, such as Australia, which is where Telstra is based, might have better luck. Nonetheless, one spec definitely worth noting is this: the X24 LTE modem is built on an industry-leading 7nm FinFET process, which is great from both form-factor and power efficiency angles.

Where does this modem fit into the 5G picture? While Qualcomm and others seem very confident that the 5G roll out will take place in early 2019, it’s still going to take some time before a good chunk of the market is going to be able to take advantage of it. That being the case, this 2Gbps modem would step in and help fill the gap a little bit, as it operates on 4G networks.

In this case, filling the gap means one of two things. There’s no definitive information as of yet, seeing as the launch is still quite some time off, but Qualcomm believes that there will be smartphones equipped only with the X24 LTE modem, while others (probably exclusively high-end) devices will include it, and also the X50 5G modem. That’d give owners of higher-end handsets the best of both worlds, and those with the X24 modem, the best possible 4G experience.

In the meantime, MWC is right around the corner. These 2Gbps tests should be fun to watch.